Re-imagining God in the Shack
What’s wrong with this picture?
This week, Christians around the world will commemorate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It was at a Maundy Thursday service at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, in 1984, that a four-foot bronze statue of Jesus on the cross was unveiled. But to the shock of the congregation, the image of Christ on the cross was, in fact, an image of Christa. It portrayed Christ as a woman, complete with undraped breasts and rounded hips.
Betty Friedan, the main force behind modern day feminism, predicted that the question of the eighties would be: “Is God HE?” The Christa sculpture was the liberal church’s response to the question. And although Evangelical Christians have been much slower to consider female gendered God imagery, the recent phenomenon of the multi-million best-seller, “The Shack,” indicates that Evangelicals, too, are succumbing to the feminist pressure to image God in feminine ways. It’s a scenario that I predicted almost 25 years ago.
If you haven’t read it yet, and are amongst the un-Shacked evangelical minority, here’s the story in a nutshell. Mack’s  youngest daughter Missy is kidnapped and murdered in a remote mountain shack by a serial slime, called the Daisy Bug Killer. Mack goes through a denial-grief-anger-bitterness cycle until he receives a letter in his mailbox from God who tells him to go back to the shack to confront his point of pain and suffering. When Mack gets to the shack he blacks out and awakens to find himself in a cabin complete with a manifestation of the Godhead.  But this is no ordinary Godhead.
God the Father, called “Papa,” is a She. An Aunt Jemima pancake cooking Mother. Think Whoopee Goldberg in an apron. And Sarayu, the Holy Spirit with an Assyrian name, is a wispy ethereal female. Think life-sized Tinkerbell emitting rainbows and sparkles. Jesus is a human “male” – the one the three members of the Godhead collaboratively spoke into existence as the Son of God (umm… go figure).  Then, in a bizarre twist that defies the orthodox image of the pre-incarnate Christ, another woman, “Sophia” appears as the divine personification of God’s wisdom.  And in the end, Papa contributes to the gender-bent confusing mess by setting aside his/her female cross dressing persona for a slightly more familiar masculine one- a grey haired man with a hip ponytail.
Forgiveness and healing from pain is a valid biblical motif – one to which I am profoundly committed. Â But the way we heal is by running toward the God of the Bible, not by killing off or altering the parts of his character that we find politically incorrect. Not by coming up with an image of a God that is more palatable to our modern-day sensibilities. Not by altering God-revealed truth about the Trinity. Not by thinking we need to “help” God with his image. Over the years, I’ve witnessed thousands of women come to a place of healing and wholeness through the redeeming power of the unvarnished foolishness of the gospel.
The Shack contains terribly wrong concepts about God. Plain and simple. If you think it doesn’t, then you’re well on your way to accepting the image of the Christa on the cross. In a few years, you might be hanging her up in your church. I don’t think I’m overstating the case. In my book I’ve carefully documented the way it happened in mainline churches. The arguments used to justify their feminist Christa are the same ones the Shack uses to justify its feminized version of God. In essence, there’s no difference between the artistic image of a feminized Jesus (a.k.a. “Sophia”) hanging on a cross and the artistic image of a feminized Aunt Jemima Papa god in a book.  If the latter doesn’t offend you, then the former really shouldn’t.
I’ve had good friends tell me that I’m missing the point of the Shack. Maybe I am. But maybe, just maybe, they are. Maybe they are getting caught up in the emotion of a heart-wrenching story and are failing to notice the horrendous theology that under girds it. The authors claim that “at its core the book is one long Bible Study.” This isn’t an ordinary story book. It’s a book that seeks to transform people’s ideas about God. The fiction is merely a vehicle for the theology.
How we image God matters. So the image of God the book presents matters. It matters a great deal. Â I seem to recall that God wasn’t terribly amused when his people imaged him in the wrong way, as a golden calf. If you’re not convinced that we should refrain from imaging God as female, and are interested in understanding more about the feminist theology rampant in the Shack, check into my book, The Feminist Mistake. If you take the time to understand the impact that feminism has had on society and church, then maybe you’ll understand my distaste for the Shack’s feminine god rendition.
When it comes down to it, my primary interest is not to engage in a debate about the merits of the Shack. It’s OK if you liked the book. There are some good messages in it, and parts that I liked very much. And it’s apparently helped people in some significant ways. So that’s the good part. But I do want you to think about the false gender-blended image of God this book insidiously presents. And I do want you to base your thinking about God and masculinity and femininity on Scripture, and not on the spirit of this age. The thing that bothers me the most about the Shack is that it wraps destructive ideas up in an appealing package and feeds it to people who have neither the discernment nor the desire to carefully separate truth from error. Most Shackites don’t have a clue about the magnitude of the implications of messing with Trinitarian imagery.
Here’s the thing. In the Old Testament, God instructed his people to reject female goddess images and images of God as a bi-sexual or a dual-sexual Baal/Ashtoreth-type collaboration. God hated this imagery so much that he had his people destroy it and all those who promoted it. The New Testament Church also fought hard against teachings that sought to incorporate female images of God alongside the male images – the Gnostic heresy, in particular. And now, it seems that the same ideas are knocking once again…. and many are throwing the Church doors wide open and welcoming them in.
What’s the big deal? Why can’t we image God as female? The main reason is that God defines who God is and how we are to image him and relate to him. God has chosen to reveal himself with male imagery. Father is HE. Son is HE. Holy Spirit is HE. That’s not to say that God is male. He encompasses everything that is good about masculinity and femininity. But that doesn’t mean that we have the liberty to think or refer to him as female. That’s crossing a line we have no right to cross.
The gender imagery that God has given us is highly important. It reflects critical truths about the nature of the Trinity. Calling him “she” violates his character and important imagery about the nature of our relationship to him. As C.S. Lewis observes,
Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask “Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?”
But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument … Â against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.
The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life… [But] one of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures… [God images himself as masculine because]…we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him.
…The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it.
(Quotes from C.S. Lewis Essays Notes on the Way and That Hideous Strength.)
There’s a whole lot more to be said about the importance of accurate gender imagery and the importance of honoring and preserving masculine imagery for God. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Hopefully this post has alerted you to some popular false ways of thinking that are both insidious and dangerous. The nearly universal frothing of the Christian community over the Shack shows me how very much the philosophy of feminism has influenced even the Evangelical church.
For those of you who are interested, here’s a more detailed critique of the Shack by renowned Christian reviewer, Tim Challies
copyright 2009, Mary Kassian
Category: Blog, Book Reviews, Current Issues, Doctrine
I had a bad feeling in my gut when I was reading the Shack. This explains why. You are absolutely right. There’s no difference between the Christa picture and the goddess in the Shack. Both are equally offensive.
The trouble is, people think something is good just because it makes them feel good. I have friends who are starry eyed about the Shack and keep saying “Oh it meant so much to me.” Well maybe it did, but that doesn’t make it right. Believe it or not, some friends are even trying to use the Shack as an evangelistic tool. “Hey, come meet my Mother/Father” God… What kind of a message is that? Then we have to unteach them when they say “yes”?
It’s time we get back to studying Scripture. I did like some of the things in the Shack. But the wolf usually comes in sheeps clothing. It’s because there’s good in it and because it’s written by someone who calls himself a Christian that we tolerate all the bad stuff.
Feminists see Sophia as the goddess of the Bible. Sophia worship includes paganism and all sorts of crazy new age and wicca rituals. Sophia is the justification for bringing all kinds of ancient goddesses into Christianity. (See This, for example) The reason feminists think its OK to image Jesus as female is because they say he is the incarnation of Sophia (wisdom). She only had a male body because of the patriarchal culture. Because the world wasn’t ready to accept women’s equality she was born a he. These people argue that if Jesus came today, she would manifest herself in her true feminine form. I am actually shocked that pastor/writers who call themselves evangelicals would go anywhere near the name Sophia. The Great Sadness of this book is the fact that it was ever written.
“the unvarnished foolishness of the gospel.” I like that.
I think its good to pray to our Mother in heaven. You people are a bunch of rednecked fundamentalists.It’s time to move beyond the patriarchal scriptures that have oppressed women so badly.
I had a very hard time with this book for the obvious reasons; not only did the idea of God as an Aunt Jamima sort of character make me very uncomfortable, but also several scripturally incorrect statements were made. God tells Mack that he doesn’t want him to be like Jesus. WHAT?! The Bible states that we should be more like Christ, as we are created in His image. I would never share this book with anyone as a witnessing tool.
I read The Shack and really enjoyed it. The encounters between the main character and Jesus were my favorites. Before The Shack, I never thought of God as feminine, and after reading it, I still don’t. What I took from the book was the love and genuine care and deep desire to have a truly personal relationship that Jesus has toward us. It also made clearer to me the differences in the ‘jobs’ of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God. I did NOT take this book as theologically correct. I enjoyed the relational moments in the book and held them up to my plumb line, the Holy Scriptures, and if they didn’t match what God’s Word says, then I rejected them. I never considered for a moment while reading the book that God is a woman, or could be depicted as a woman. It was my thought that the author wanted to convey God’s relational qualities in the form of a woman. God in heaven is my Father, now and always. Thank you, and God bless.
THANK YOU Jan! I agree
AlliCat-I pray the Scriptures become more to you than just simply patriarchal and oppressive but that your eyes would see the depths of Gods unfailing and abiding love for YOU throughout the story of the Gospel in the Bible. I praise the Lord He is a mighty Savior fighting for His divinely wise plans to bring to salvation all who are to believe! Thank you for this article, may God alone be glorified!
Jan: You read the book in the way the author intended it to be read. I wish more would do the same, but alas, once the word heresy is begun, everyone jumps on the bandwagon, as it appears to be the case here.
God is neither “he” nor “she”. Metaphors describing God in scripture describe both traditional masculine personality characteristics as well as feminine. To come down on one side or the other is discounting this.
I don’t agree with the use of the “Christa” image since Christ WAS male. But I also don’t agree with completely discounting the feminine sides of God. Male and female were created in God’s image.
Either way you cut it, neither side is right. God is God and completely beyond the limited human understanding that we finite creatures can comprehend. There are times when I have an understanding of God the Father. But there are times when I feel my mother hen gathering her chicks.
The Shack is not, I don’t think, trying to be feminist… but it’s trying to stretch our minds to think of God outside of our little boxes in our heads.
Your article is interesting. The Shack is an allegory with the intention of teaching that God is interested in each individual person. It is the author’s creative right to suggest God the Father be so aware of the protagonist’s own distrust of a father-figure that he would choose to disarm the protagonist in the form of a woman. I’m sure he was using the idea that our earthly father often shapes our image of our heavenly Father. But still, this IS fiction. FICTION. The problem you should be addressing is not the feminization of God (which is an issue for a different context), but instead, Chrisitians desperately TURNING fiction into theological truths. Jesus is not a lion in a fantasy world. Tim LaHaye doesn’t know how the world will end. And Papa is not really God. Perhaps the church has failed to offer up enough of the REALITY of Christ’s availability in this life that people, sadly, turn to fiction for hope. This is not Mr. Young’s fault.
There were a number of things in “The Shack” that did not sit well with me, but there are two specific things that clearly were in direct violation of Scripture…they are as follows:
1) John 1:18 and 2 Corinthians 4:6 say that it is in the face of Christ that we see God and His glory (fiction or no fiction, “The Shack†gives readers the illusion that it is okay with God the Father to be pictured as an African American woman, God the Son to be pictured as a man limited in knowledge and power (pg. 121, 141, 149, 172, 182), and God the Holy Spirit to be seen as an Asian woman).
2) Deut. 32:39, 1 Sam. 2:6-7, Ecc. 7:13-14, Is. 45:5-7, Lam. 3:37-38, and all of Is. 40-48 clearly state God’s sovereign control over all good and evil, all while maintaining His perfect holiness in regard to the evil in the world (“the Triune God†in the book comes across as incapable of the power to stop evil…he can only create good…and, what is most disturbing to me, is the way he handles Mack’s suffering without taking into account all the many Scripture references concerning a disciple’s inevitable participation in suffering for Christ (John 16:33, Acts 14:22, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 4:12-13).
We all must lean upon our gracious LORD for wisdom and discernment when it comes to supporting or rejecting such messages that may seem harmless, but are destructive if not filtered through Scripture.
Excellent article. Thank you for writing it. I think it is very important for this book to be questioned and criticized on websites aimed at women.
There is just one little thing I want to bring up(not necessarily fit for publication). I don’t quite understand the usage of the word “urethral” in paragraph four. Maybe have a second look at it or clarify the meaning a bit. Thanks. God Bless.
I very much appreciate the article, and see this happening in the church. The Shack has had a profound impact.
John
http://thechristianworldview.com/tcwblog/archives/934
Excellent review here too.
Gordon MacDonald, whom I respect as a leader in the world for the cause of Christ, recently came out with a review of The Shack titled “The Shack” by King David: Why certain stories disturb many and comfort so many more. (posted 3/23/2009 at Christianity Today-Leadership Weekly)
I would like to know what you think of this article. He claims that “The Shack” written as a parable is no different than God being compared to a Shepherd, and the book is to be read as such. I honestly don’t know how to respond to that.
Haven’t read the article, but I disagree that we have the freedom to rename God as mother or she. “Father” is a name for God that is far different than Shepherd or Door. The latter are names that describe what he is like, while the former is an ontological term, describing his essence of being. While God is neither male nor female, He uses masculine terms for himself to reflect important truths about the nature of his relationship to us. We don’t name God. Nowhere in Scripture is he referred to as “She.” And we don’t have the right to call or think of him that way. The problem is, we live in a culture that exalts personal experience as truth. Just because the image is comforting to some, doesn’t mean that it’s right. When we change images for God, we turn away from God. There are many gods that we could worship. But the GOD of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus, the God of the Bible, images himself as FATHER and not mother. He and not she.
“And Sarayu, the Holy Spirit with an Assyrian name, is a wispy urethral female.”
Did you perhaps mean ethereal?
Aside from that one nit, I appreciate the article as it expresses my concerns about the book so well.
ha ha. You’re right. Typing too fast and my spell check didn’t catch it.
[...] Mary Kassian – Great review. Â Captures a lot of my concerns [...]
When are you gonna wake up? Just like you said “Jesus is a human “male†– Can’t you see what the author want’s to tell us.
Nobody will ever know what Jesus had to give up to become a human being. Or are you still one of those that think that “Jesus came to earth to save us” is a myth.
Why did God present himself as a woman? He could just as well presented Himself as a Bull Fighter. Wake up!!!
God has no gender nor a taker off personality. **GOD IS REAL, SO IS JESUS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.**
I’d rather live my life as if there is a God and finding out there isn’t than living as if there is no God and then finding out there is.
I’m with Janet: I had a bad feeling when I read the Shack. Thanks for putting into much more articulate words what I was feeling when I read this book…and giving it more backbone, too.
AlliCat: Have you read the Scriptures, particularly Jesus’s counter-cultural treatment of women? I think you may be surprised.
On the back cover, it sounded like a good read, until I got into the book. It gave me the shivers! I looked on the internet about the author and he states that the book was to educate his family members about the nature of God. I have read other works of (christian)fiction and this is the first time that I have experienced such blatant rubbish, which scared me silly! I read the book a 2nd time with the bible next to me to use it as a ref. What worries me is that some of the ladies in leadership positions in my church have said that you have to be SPIRITUALLY MATURE to accept the books revelations……. scary thought!
Can’t comment on the whole book as I only made it to page 110, it is now in the trash alongside the purpose-driven-life.
I’d rather find joy in reading my bible. 1 Ti 1:4 neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questionings, rather than a dispensation of God which is in faith; so do I now.
Via E-Mail:
Hi Mrs. Kassian,
I have been pondering your review of The Shack in my mind for awhile and came across an interview with The Shack’s Author ( http://www.titletrakk.com/author-interviews/william-paul-young-interview.htm ) where he said, “I went through a stage when people who were pretty edgy like Virginia Mollenkott and folks who were doing a lot of work on gender issues were very helpful”. I was somewhat shocked at first by this forthright statement and found it quite a revelation! After all, isn’t Virginia Mollenkott known as a radical feminist and someone who promotes a view that sees gender as fluid, while seeing the conservative view of gender roles as a construct and something that must be abolished? I’m surprised Mr. Young revealed this and it seemed to confirm your view of the influence and role of feminism in The Shack.
——————-
What’s very interesting about Mollenkott is that she started from a strong Evangelical vantage point. Here’s a brief overview of the progression of her theology:
- She was one of the first egalitarian writers suggesting that there was no difference in roles between men and women(1977, Women, Men & the Bible)
- She then progressed to address the question of inclusive language (1981 article: The Bible & Linguistic Change.)
- Next, she suggested that God-language also needed to be re-visited (1983, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female. He should be addressed all-inclusively as He/She/It
- Then, she took it further, and suggested that people (and women in particular) had the responsibility to analyze the Bible and determine which parts were truth (1988, Godding: Human Responsibility and the Bible)In that book, she proclaimed, “I am a manifestation of God. God Herself! God Himself! God Itself! Above all. Through all. And in us all.” She also argued that Christianity should yield its exclusive claim of Christ being the only way to God and advocated an inclusive morality.
- By 1990, Mollenkott had openly embraced a lesbian lifestyle. She was one of the keynote speakers at the 1993 Re-imagining God Conference in Minneapolis.
- In 2001, she wrote “Omnigender: A Trans-Religious Approach” in which she suggests that a blending of gender and sexuality is called for. In this book, she totally rejects the Bible’s teaching on sex, gender, and morality.
What fascinates me, is the logical progression. The presupposition that maleness and femaleness is inconsequential – and does not have a set design dictated by our Creator – eventually leads to a rejection of morality, a rejection of the Bible, and ultimately, a rejection of God (The God of the Bible, in any case)
Mollenkott’s slide down the slippery slope is very sequential and logical – and is one that is mirrored by many. I’m not surprised, quite frankly, that the author of The Shack says he was influenced by her theology. Many in the Evangelical Church are.
AlliCat: There is nothing redneck about believing the authenticity of scripture.If you are so opposed to Mary’s review….don’t read her blog.
y’all need to relax…
take it for what it’s worth
see Christ in all
chillax
pax
llicat – If you had any perspective whatsoever on history, you would see Christianity as the greatest positive force for women that the world has seen. Other cultures were terrible to women.
Has Christian culture been consistently good to women? No, of course not. Fallen hummans have never been consistently good about anything. However, non-Christian cultures are pretty typically structed as to be inherently bad to women – the abuse of women in them is the systemic design, not the (regrettbly too frequent) failure of the system as it is in Christianity.
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I am not done yet, and of course all my friends are waiting with bated breath so we can discuss this book. But as I am reading, there were some good lines, but I started to feel like ” what is wrong with me? Why am I always so critcal of whatever everyone else finds so inspiring?” I jotted down the little things that bothered me, but when I ran into Sophia, it really all became very clear. The little things are not the little things. God is just so much . . . . more. Nice book, I guess, and I will finish reading it, but thank you for pointing out that I am not an isolated crazy person.
Let me tell you what this book did to me – I started this book inspired to here a true story of one mans account, it does after all lead you to believe this in the very beginning. As I read this to me it could help other people try to understand why God allows some things to happen, I even gave one to my friend whom blames God for every thing. I do not! I gave her the book before I had even finished it myself, Big mistake! As I read, I started to have a peace about death and the death of love ones that I have had, and I could understand to some degree why God would show him self to this man in the image the he did, simply to reach this man. I was fine with this whole story because I was believeing that it was true, and that I had faith that God could do all of these things that was being told. Well when I got to the last chapter and was told that it was all fake, all made up, I was totaly shocked. I felt betrade. I have a strong faith, and I believe the word of God, but for people who don’t, this book could really do some harm. I hate this book. I fell in to the trap of the story, and it took several days for me to let go of my anger that I had even wasted my time on reading it.
“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
Acts 17:11
This is important for any Christian to do whenever a religious book comes out (especially one that is so extraordinarily popular as “The Shack”). I would encourage every person to compare whatever book they are reading with the standards of the Bible. The Bible doesn’t change. It’s standards do not stretch. If something doesn’t fit exactly, do not accept it as truth.
And just as a sidenote: I agree totally with the view Mary Kassian took on this story. I did read it, and while I didn’t have much of a problem with it at the time, I do now. Melinda (a few posts back) is correct. God can manifest Himself however He chooses. Unfortunately for the writer of this book, He always chose to manifest Himself in a masculine way and His reasons for doing so are perfect.
I find it conceivable that God could surprise us by appearing to us outside our stereotypical learnings, leanings or imaginations; and not to just surprise but to fulfill His mission of seeking and saving the lost. I find this theme of a God of persuit doing the unthinkable to redeem a lost soul in total agreement to the God of the Bible. The book is indeed fiction, but the overriding theme of a God who loves me that much to pursue me with abandon draws me closer to Him. It worked for me.
[...] Click Here to Read the Rest of Kassian’s Review [...]
Thank you so very much for highlighting the dangers in The Shack.
I was appalled to see it recommended by many Christian leaders.
Thanks for pointing us to the truth!
I will never look at my name the same way after reading this post.
“The book is indeed fiction, but the overriding theme of a God who loves me that much to pursue me with abandon draws me closer to Him. It worked for me.”
Only that it just might have drawn you as closer to God as the rebel Hebrews believed the Golden Calf had drawn them. They too seemed to be deeply moved by the Golden Calf experience. Comforted.
Just stumbled upon this interesting article and felt I needed to comment. I am not a feminist. I think the Christa on the cross is absolute blasphemy. That being said, I read ‘The Shack’. I wasn’t going to at first, because of articles like this one. Then, my mother and some friends told me how good it was. I am sorry, but maybe I am missing something here. Didn’t God create us in His image? US-male and female. I also think God meets us where we are. The man in the story was not able to relate to a dominate father figure because of all his issues with his earthly father. Do I think God is a woman. No. Do I think we were ALL created in God’s image? Yes. Why then, if we are created, male and female, in God’s image, and if God meets us where we are, could He not appear as a black female? It does not mean He IS a black female, it just means that He took on that form to help one of His children. Maybe I am off base, but I thought it was a very thought-provoking, well written book.
In response to AlliCat. You obviously do not know anything about Jesus Christ or the Scripures. The Gospel is about liberation. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. As a woman and an individual with a personal relationship with Jesus, I can attest to the fact that both Jesus Christ and the scriptures are indeed liberating. I am not oppressed and have never been oppressed serving my Lord except by people such as yourself who do not have any idea of what they are talking about but resort to foolish name calling for lack of any knowledge.
Dear Gentle Readers,
I encourage every person with this:
2 Corinthians 10:5
“We demolish arugments and every pretension that sets itself up against the *knowledge of God*, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” niv
Where do we find this revealed knowledge of God and Who He is? In the Holy Scriptures only.
I humbly encourage us all to study and explore the scriptures regularly, and pray the scriptures, such as “How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God!, how vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17)
Please Make it your heart’s and mind’s desire and mission to know the LORD as He reveals Himself; He feeds His sheep the pure milk of the Word, and then He feeds them the meat of the Word when they are mature in their faith and ready for it. (Hebrews 5:13, 1 Peter 2:2)
Psalm 25:9
The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
Remember, the LORD will help and teach you with His Holy Spirit and He will shape your mind and your flesh to conform to His way, **if you invite Him to do so,** and if you trust Him to teach you.
When you sincerely make a choice with your will to say “I will follow Your ways, LORD, and I will reject anything that is not of your Word”—the LORD is going to give you power to follow Him, His teaching, and His Word.
But, your ‘work’ is to believe, have faith, and trust that He will do as He has promised in His Word. Remember Psalm 32:8
“I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye.”
Take HIS yoke upon you, take His instruction in His Word, for He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.
The Peace of Jesus to each one of you dear souls.
Yours very truly,
Kimberly
[WEBMASTER NOTE: edited for length]
I’ve read The Shack. I understand from scripture that God made both men and women in His image – male and female, He created them in His image. Masculinity and Femininity come from Him. Both are a part of Him. Although God is my Father, I was not at all offended by the image of the character, Papa. I think for people who are new to Christianity and generally to a world that is under attack from the media, trying to right/normalise deviant sexual behaviour (sex change, homosexuality etc), the imagery is unhelpful. But personally, I did not come away from that book thinking – maybe He is a woman. God is neither a man nor a woman. He is God.
God is not male nor female. The only reason God is refered to as He in the Bible is because it was written by, duh, MEN in a time when women had very little influence or power. I personally do not believe in assigning a gender to the creator. I think God transends male and female. After all, we were all created in the image of God, right? So God must possess male and female energy and qualities, NOT just male. I think the mistake that people make is they think of God as a big man in the sky with a beard or something like that. God is not human. It’s flawed to assign human qualities to such a being that is so much bigger than that.
There are many here confusing God making male and female in His image with male and female making god in their image. The first is Biblical, the second is idolatry, but that is what is being done all too often. The constant failure and ultimate idolatry of such human-centered religions stems from assigning to God the qualities that we want he/she/it to have. Problem is, you are just making up your own religion, the authority for conceiving God this way is….. just because you like it that way or you are banded together with like-minded people – not much to go on. The transcendence and authority of God to reveal himself as he is in himself is what gives us true knowledge and reconciliation with God. Claiming that Fatherhood or Sonship in the eternal relations of the trinitarian being are nothing but dispensable masks that God can take on or off at will reduces our knowledge of God to socially constructed images determined by what is currently acceptable in culture. And superficial feminist “explanations” of attributing the masculinity of God to patriarchy are banal and ultimately ignorant – and as usual highly manipulative (please read about any other ancient religion). The direction of authority goes from God to us, not the other way around.
What are we women afraid of? If we seek God with all our heart we will find God (Jer 29:13). Surely this can mean also using feminine imagery if this helps us. In the OT the female gods were not rejected because they were female but because of what the religions were (Baal after all was male). And it is plain dismissive and unimaginative to talk of building golden calves like the Israelites in order to scare people off from stretching their view of God beyond the evangelical confines. The OT itself has feminine imagery of God. Torah (the law), Ruah (God’s breath) and Hokmah (wisdom, by which the world was made – in Greek Sophia, so not a horrible dangerous pagan word) are all feminine words. Julian of Norwich who is far holier and lived a life of prayer way beyond what we could ever achieve saw no problem with describing Jesus as mother. Please don’t let us limit our God because of fear. God is Yahweh in order that we don’t make man made limitations and idolatries.
Check out http://www.bewaretheshack.com if you want to get a definitive response to The Shack.
1. I read The Shack and never once thought that the author was implying that God is female, and Kassian is a little self-defeating when she even states that God reveals himself as masculine in the end.
2. The Bible refers to wisdom as feminine (example: Proverbs 4:6)
3. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom
4. The Greek noun for Spirit (pneuma) is neuter (neither feminine nor masculine), while the corresponding word in Aramaic, the language in which our Lord probably spoke, is feminine
5. In the parable of the lost coin (In Luke 15:8-10), the character who represents God is a woman – I think this very well falls under the category of what Kassian calls “female gendered God imagery” . I’m not offended by this, but I’m still offended by Christa on the Cross.
If someone chooses not to read The Shack, so be it, but I’m writing this because I would hate to see someone choose not to read The Shack based on this article. In many ways I feel the Christian community has slandered Young. If you choose to continue your research about The Shack I would encourage you to go straight to the source – see what Young himself has to say, and not what others “think” he thinks. For what it’s worth, I absolutely agree with Kassian’s statement that the Shack “isn’t an ordinary story book. It’s a book that seeks to transform people’s ideas about God. The fiction is merely a vehicle for the theology.”
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Hello. My pastor used your article it looks like, to speak out against the rebellion of women in current times, including his comments, which came from you, regarding “The Shack” book. What a cleaver and intelligent discernment- filled woman you are! I am appreciative of that quality, which is lacking today! Good work my dear! I look forward to purchasing your book you sited when my tax refund comes.
May I also humbly pass on a few book recommends? May I suggest you and all your readers get a hold anything written by Warren B Smith? A “Wonderful” Deception (available through lighhousetrails publishing in OR) Or Amazon, is where it can be found. He writes along with a subsequent book titled, Unshackled by Larry DeBruyn. They really rip into these New Age/ New Spirituality hybrid change agents’ ideas with in “The Christian” community. There is a free on line primer that if you can stomach the truth of this Revelation 17 whore that is forming slowly, regarding the direction we are going in, by Warren Smith. He is also on YouTube too.
There are so many wicked facets to this Shack book, but it is really about developing a taste in modern society, even in the “Christian” church, for this twisted worldview that began in the garden. So, enjoy the research and thanks for the light you wonderful researchers and educators are doing for the remnant. The Lord bless you and all your efforts my dear. You write the article, other write books, the pastors tell about them in pulpits and the church masses get wiser! How exciting and fruit bearing!
Also you may enjoy Good Fight Ministries w/ Pastor Joe Schimmel, with article and DVD’s and commentary about underlying worldview in music, books and movies. It is really good stuff that we need today in this dark world. God bless.
[edited for length]
Wow, big religious spirit! So shallow
I just found your website. I did the “Conversation Peace” study at church last year…and just let me say it brought up a whole lot of issues that I wasn’t quite ready to confront.
So, thank you!
Just now browsing, and not yet even having read through all the comments, I want to personally say “Thank you!”. I was asked to read “The Shack”. I kept trying to quit, but continued at my friend’s request.
Afterward finishing, I said “I wish I could have that time back and remove those ideas and images from my memory!” My friend said, “well, I felt the same way, but I thought there was something wrong with me because all these believers are embracing this book and saying they are “wowed” by it.
I am not happy that I did read the book. But, I am glad that I am better armed to argue the evil seeds planted in the book. I continue to be shocked by other believers who say I am too judgmental, not reading it the way it was intended, etc. I STRONGLY urged one friend who was buying the book by the case to distribute to non-believers to reconsider because satan glories in the ever so slight twisting of God’s truth that we might be entrapped in his deception. Satan wants people to think and believe that they can define God, to make God what/who they each need God to be. Pardon me, but is that not idolatry? Also, the book proports that people come as they are to God~~TRUE~~~~ but, the book says you also leave as you came~~~~FALSE. I was especially disturbed by the comment in the book where it says God has many children and then lists nearly every possible religion known to man in identifying God’s children who belong to Him. Sorry, wrong again, it is not possible to be a TRUE child of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus and continue to be a hindu, or muslim, or New Age, or buddist….Simply Not Possilbe. The One True God changes people and changes hearts.
Thank you for putting into words the conviction that burned in my spirit. I was feeling like a true loner out there…..and wondering what IS wrong with me! I am very sad to say one friend told me a church actually built a “shack” in the building for people to enter and be with God. I am not saying that God isnt able to use something for His own Glory….but I have to wonder if people at that church can meet with God at all.
oh thank you, for exposing The Shack, I have not read it, though reading about it on different sites such as Lighthouse Trails and the Berean Call, have informed me of it’s dangers and blasphemy, i don’t intend on reading it.
It is widely accepted in the church and it’s teachings, message and author, not even questioned. The woman depicted allegorically as God is not even the only problem. The New Age message is also in it. One part of the movement is that God is in everything, Pantheism.
(from first link): The Shack states:
“God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things….” (p. 112)
If that isn’t Pantheism, I don’t now what is.
We have lost the preaching of the Word in the church so therefore have also lost spiritual discernment. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the exposing of this deceptive book.
Thank you, Thank you.
very good articles on how and why The Shack is wrong (from Lighthouse Trails Research):
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2008/06/shack-its-new-age-leaven.html (by Warren B. Smith)
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=44070390&pageid=r&mode=ALL&n=0&_charset_=&bcd=÷&query=the+shack
Pantheism states that everything is God, not that God is in everything. There is a difference. God is omnipresent, which means that he is present everywhere.
This very day, I shared with my upteenth person the dangers of The Shack. Like me, she was reading it innocently at first, thinking it was (after all) a Christian book. No harm, no danger, right? Thankfully, like me, she was relieved for someone to point out the dangerous underlying theology of this book; NOT defensive like many who presume to defend this book as some high & holy scribe because it is highly creative & most of all, because it “touched” them. Unfortunately, today we have to be SO on guard with discernment, even (especially) within the Church itself. Our enemy is becoming wilier in his infiltrations. This book is one of them; an infiltration. So is another “Christian” book soon to be coming out…180. And yet another…Noah’s Wife. What have the Emergent Church Movement, Rick Warren, and the like taught us? That feelings/emotions/experiences weigh more than the Word in our Christian walk. I tell you, this is a lie. God’s Word is our plumb line against which everything should be measured. One way is man-based, the other is God-based. It’s as simple as that and doesn’t have anything to do with thinking outside the box, or stretching your mind. Don’t get caught up in the pretty packaging, people. Inside, is empty darkness.
I haven’t yet read “The Shack”, but I know a lot of people in my church, including the pastor, loved it.
I do find the image of “Christa” offensive, but I would like to point out something that you English-only speakers are missing.
In most languages, everything has a gender, not just people. “Father” and “Son” are male in all languages. The Hebrew word for Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh, is female. Father, Ruach and Son are three attributes or members of the ONE God which cannot be separated. Just as a man is composed of body, soul and spirit, so is YHVH.
God (Elohim, a plural word in Hebrew) is one God, not three. Jewish people still sing, “Shma Israel, Adonai Elohaaynu, Adonai Echad”, meanin, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.”
God did create humanity, both male and female, in His (their) image, so God is inherently without gender, or has attributes of both. So it’s silly to image three people in a room being God. It polytheism.
That being said, God came on earth in physical form as a man, so we think of God as a man. The first sin came through woman, so the first sin-bearer was born through woman. We see here that woman plays a central role in the story of mankind- this doesn’t make the Bible “patriarchial”- no man was ever as close to God as Mary (except for Jesus, who was God incarnate!).
Jesus also had to be a man for genetic reasons. Man has XY chromosomes, so that a woman with XX could come from him. (You can make a woman from a man, but you can’t make a man from a woman…. she has no Y chromosome). Jesus, as the “second adam”, a perfect man without sin who is one with God, had to come to ransom humanity. A woman would not have done.
Regarding the book, since the events in the book are apparently a dream or vision, it could be seen as an allegory. I personally have a problem with God being depicted by a person at all. God being depicted by a woman has been done before, in the film “Dogma”, and God has often been depicted as an old white man (He was once played by George Burns), etc. My problem is that God is infinite and holy, and these images do not convey the greatness, majesty and holiness of God, they belittle the awe-inspiring, infinite aspect of God, turning Him into some nice, innoculous guy who you can sit down and “have a chat with”. It’s the treacly, cuddly, “precious moments” version of Christianity that I so dislike.
That being said, if the book helps some people to re-connect with God, I’m happy for them. There are so many violent, “feel bad” books out there, that if there is something even slightly positive out there, it’s better than nothing. So long as people don’t use it as a substitute for getting to know the God of the Bible.
I love these comments!
“Maybe they are getting caught up in the emotion of a heart-wrenching story and are failing to notice the horrendous theology that under girds it.”
And:
“This isn’t an ordinary story book. It’s a book that seeks to transform people’s ideas about God. The fiction is merely a vehicle for the theology.”
However I was surprised by this comment:
“God instructed his people to reject female goddess images and images of God as a bi-sexual or a dual-sexual Baal/Ashtoreth-type collaboration. God hated this imagery so much that he had his people destroy it and all those who promoted it.”
God forbids the worship of ANY image, whether male or female or transgender, or even whether the “god” is a human figure or an animal figure. It is all idolatry, and abhorrent! God does not single out female images as especially detestable in the Ten Commandments. See Exodus 20:4-5
Certainly God wanted to make a clear distinction between himself and the “great mother” goddess that was the most common deity of the Ancient Near East. However God is a Spirit and genderless. God is not male. Furthermore, he is described in the Bible as having (what WE would call) masculine and feminine qualities.
I certainly do not perceive God to be either female or male despite using masculine pronouns when referring to him, and calling him “Father”. Moreover, Jesus Christ most definitely came to earth as a male human being, and the figure on the cross in the picture is reprehensible and perverse.
My experience with this book is a personal one. My husband & I actually stopped attending a church over it (we had been visiting there for about 9 months). Never had I heard the pastor get out-of-line in his preaching; or so I thought. But my husband caught an undercurrent that he never could quite put his finger on. I did catch it when the asst. pastor preached; this undercurrent, but I didn’t quite understand what “it” was.
Fast forward to me seeing The Shack in their church book store. I cautioned the store manager about in a non-confrontational way, yet she became extremely defensive and dismissive. Shocked me. Because I had the pastor’s ear (we were in touch via email because I was about to do some collaboration on their website; I’m a freelance writer), I mentioned it to him thinking that he surely would not want such a false, destructive book in God’s house, available to his flock. He read it after my email and gave me his verdict; which was, it was theologically sound and he should know, having a master’s in theology. (!!) He mentioned two other mega churches, that their church partnered with, who also praised the book.
Now, believe me, I respect the role of a pastor in God’s eyes. I wrote him back, thanking him for taking the time to investigate and write me back. I also told him that while I respected his position and background greatly, I would have to respectfully disagree with his assessment because of the very discernment that God called me to. That almost right certainly wasn’t right when it comes to putting words in God’s mouth, like this book does. It has to line up with the gospel perfectly in that case.
I sent the email two hours before I attended church service. What happened next was shocking. He got up in the pulpit, obviously agitated, and basically called me a Pharisee for an hour. The reason I knew he was directing it at me, as did my husband, was that he used the same language from his email; same phrases. So…we did not go back.
But I was shaken by what exactly all “this” was. I spent the next 3 weeks in major research mode, trying to pin down this undercurrent that we sensed beforehand and saw rear its ugly head right before our eyes. That’s when I learned what the “Emergent Church” was. I was not familiar with the term previously. This church was a seeker church with a hidden emergent philosophy. Those 2 churches that they collaborated with? Very emergent, it turns out.
And guess what? The following year the pastor hosted the author of The Shack at his church for a huge speaking engagement. I have prayed for him and his congregation; to “come out from among them” & get back into the Word. I learned just recently that he had a major stroke this year. Again, I pray for him. That God would open his eyes. My heart grieves to think of him standing before His Heavenly Father explaining why he saw fit to lead his flock down this dead-end road.
Whoa! How disturbing that because someone was or was not bothered by the imagery in The Shack- that allows us to make the call as to how God will be dealing with those who have or have not given it a positive or negative review.
THE BOOK IS FICTION! I have read The Shack…twice…once when it was first published & now, again, to participate in DISCUSSION about the book. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the image of God as female…and our discussion leader did a wonderful job of pointing out scripture and keeping the focus on what is and is not acceptable where the Word is concerned. I’ve no doubt that anyone in our discussion group believes for a minute that God is female.
With that said, I didn’t once think of God as female as I read this book. I am very careful to not put God in a box. We as His children should be very, very careful of limiting God with what WE think is right or wrong.